r/AskAcademia

As per the title, I'm in my 4th year (the final year, in my country/program) in a social sciences program, and I feel like I have accomplished very little in this time.

I have some interview data (maybe 20-25), some fieldwork, maybe 20k words written up, and not much else. I don't feel like I have enough data to coherently show anything, and I've lost track of what my question even was in the first place (partly because my plan kept changing).

I realised throughout the course of this program that it's extremely likely that I have ADHD (and I have been told as such by psychologists, but not diagnosed). One of my supervisors retired in my second year, and the other travels extensively so hasn't been around much. There were several bumps in the road. I didn't give my thesis enough structure to begin with, and I never really figured it out in time to bounce back. I have been on stress leave for the past year as a result of chronic health issues, but my time is coming to either rejoin the program or leave.

I'm not confident that I can finish the thesis next year, given that I really have extremely little data. What I do have is basically incoherent; I'm not confident that I can answer a clear research question with what I do have. I won't be funded next year, though I will probably be offered regular tutoring work and/or could work part time. I think that my supervisor has lost faith in my ability, and I don't have much other support or encouragement. With developments to AI, academia increasingly seems like it will become just a passion project for the elite. On the other hand, a finished PhD does have obvious benefit for potential careers in the future, and 1 year more isn't so long (especially compared to starting a new PhD years down the line).

So my options are:

1. Carry on unfunded, push through the stress and try to submit something, even though I'm not confident it will pass

2. Quit the PhD, move on and build a career

3. Master out

4. Something else I haven't considered

I'm certain at this point that I do not want a career in academia, but research adjacent areas are not off the table and indeed are likely required skills for many jobs in my field/industry. I know lots of people think I should just push through and submit, but I genuinely feel very lost and hopeless about it. If I spend a year (unfunded) writing something that doesn't pass, I will be putting myself into a worse situation than I am currently in.

Does anyone have any words of advice? Is academia worth it? This experience has totally eroded my own confidence in my abilities, and I don't know what to do.

Is academia really that small? Like do people actually know of other people in their field and have opinions of them?

I’m interested in maybe getting a PhD and a career in science - just trying to understand academia’s culture.

I'm faculty at a high ranking European university and I get many emails a day from prospective graduate students. I read every one of these emails but the vast majority follow the following generic format:

• Introduction
• Your research interests and a generic assertion that it's related to mine
• Your research experience and relevant skills
• Asking whether you would be a good fit and/or if I have any open positions
• See attached for my CV

Nothing here demonstrates that you've got any original thoughts or that you've spent more than five seconds copy-pasting key words from my Google Scholar profile into a template. I just do not have the time to respond to these kinds of enquiries. Not just because it's disrespectful of my time (if you can't put effort into your email, why should I put effort into replying?) but if you can't put any originality or effort into your first email to an academic you're hoping to develop a professional relationship with, you have no chance of getting through the actual university admissions process. I am not looking for a meek and obedient employee I can give work to, I'm looking for bright and creative students who can think for themselves.

If you're a prospective grad student and your emails are being ignored, trust me - this is almost certainly the reason. If you put genuine effort into their email, I will always respond (I might not be able to respond with the answer you're looking for, but I will respond).

I would infinitely rather read an interesting email with some original ideas (even if they're impractical or wrong) than another copy-paste generic template that doesn't say anything.

Edit: I don't believe that commenters calling this unreasonable are actually faculty members. We get hundreds of generic enquiries every year from people with broadly similar backgrounds, making similarly vague and generic claims about their interest in my general subject of study. For the vast majority, there is nothing that obviously distinguishes them. It is physically impossible for me to engage with most of them. We are looking for people with potential to become leading independent researchers. What I'm describing is a completely reasonable expectation.

Yes, I understand that defenses are handled in different manners around the world. Yes I also understand that a defense is often more a celebration of the work and less a rigorous examination. I also totally understand you really don't want to fail somebody who worked 3+ years for you, and that you are looking for the good parts of the work, and not focus on the weaknesses. I also understand that the inability to answer basic questions is a temporary embarrassment, not grounds to fail a candidate.

But this week things just went too far. Our defenses consist of 30 minutes presentations and up to 90 minutes of questions from a committee of 5 professors, no audience questions allowed.

The presentation had no introduction, barely any explanation of what was going on. If you were not deep into his work you were already lost from the first slide. At the same time it avoided all difficult or advanced topics. A typical case of explaining a simple things in a complicated way.

The presentation clearly had a lot of AI-generated parts. Obvious from some of the wording and the formatting. The formulas had weird formatting issues throughout the presentation, e.g. the Greek letter phi was written multiple times as the empty set ∅. That cannot happen by accident with a typo in LaTeX. Many pictures and illustrations, none of them had any reference provided.

And then the slides that were not AI-generated. Extremely crowded. Tiny plots of data with labels that were absolutely impossible to read, embedded in walls of text. Core processing steps and results were only shown inside screenshots of a GUI. One crucial data processing step was only shown on a slide that had six(!) full monitor screen shots pasted next to each other.

And what was the committee thinking about all of this? They handled him with silk gloves. A full hour of softball questions. Not a single question about the fundamentals behind theory and assumptions. He was asked about the assumptions he makes, could not answer that. Not a single question about complementary techniques, or the limitations of his work. Only vague, open questions, answered in a rambling style of a politician. There was one genuine question one would expect in a PhD defense, but the committee member already apologized for asking in advance. Of course he had no idea what the question was about, even though it directly related to the work of his own supervisor. The committee is also allowed to ask general questions about the field, they asked absolutely none.

Well, in the end there was one final question: What is actually the scientific contribution of your work? You have only presented measurements well known in literature? His answer: I made a GUI.

Well of course he passed.

Sorry for the rant here, maybe you can say something about how you would handle such a situation. If I was on the committee I would have grilled him with basic fundamental questions and insisted on getting an actual answer. Not to speak about the numerous illustrations that were plagiarized from somewhere.

I’m a 2nd year assistant professor on the tenure track and seriously considering leaving academia. I’ve applied for a couple a jobs already, mostly as a way to see what’s out there that fits my values and skill set. If I were to get an interview for those jobs, I’ll go through with it and then decide whether or not I want to move forward or stay on my academic path.

Since other industries tend to move a lot faster than academia should I tell my Chair that I’m considering other jobs? I don’t want to jeopardize my current position yet, especially because this urge to leave might just be “this semester is especially hard right now and I need a break” rather than I really want a different career. But at the same time, I don’t want to leave my department in a bad position by suddenly leaving. I will of course finish this semester no matter what. And ideally, I would like to keep my 1 class teaching commitment for next semester to stay on good terms with my colleagues. Do you know if it’s allowed to take on a second job as faculty? I don’t think my contract says anything about that. I’d be fine moving to an adjunct position for next semester if I were to get another job but I have no idea what’s allowed/how pay would work, etc. I know things are institution specific, but does anyone have any general advice or have they been in the same position?

Edit: thanks, all, for the really great suggestions! It's really helpful :) I'll leave this post up as a potential resource for people organising conferences in the future.

What are some memorable 'nice touches' of conferences that you've been to that you wish more conference organisers would adopt? (Mainly humanities and social sciences, but also great to hear from STEM people!)

If a conference was particularly impactful to your career or just really enjoyable, was there anything about the way that it was organised that facilitated this impact/enjoyment? Are there any practices that make it easier to engage with current research in the field and properly network with people, particularly for early career researchers? I'm also keen to hear about small things like, for instance, giving out reusable coffee cups to reduce waste, or organising panels so that questions happen directly after each paper (so people can move around between panels). Also would love to know about anything that makes planning/travel/accommodation easier.

Bonus: do you have any conference organising pet peeves?

Nowadays one can simply search for relevant papers to cite on the internet, but how did academics do this before the internet?

I am currently working on my monograph, which requires me to write at least 300 pages by the end of my PhD.

However, I am really struggling with getting as many articles and sources as possible to read in one day, and write some paragraphs or take notes based on them. Even on my ideal day, I can only finish up to 3 articles or a book chapter, which is sometimes only enough for ONE SENTENCE. And since it is a monograph, I am expected to trace back almost every reference in the article, cite the original paper, and discuss the points in light of that new source. So, as you can imagine, my laptop is full of tabs that I open constantly from the citations given in just one article. At the end, it becomes a snowball effect.

So my questions are:

- How do you read fast without losing comprehension?

- What is a healthy amount to read and write a day?

- Are there tools that you can recommend for reading fast?

- Any other advice on the topic would be appreciated.

I’m an early(ish) career academic in the health sciences. It’s expected in my field to obtain NIH grant funding, particularly the holy grail of grants, the R01, for tenure and promotion. I’ve applied seven or eight times as PI or MPI; all my applications have been scored (some quite well) but never funded. I have a couple R03s, but that is it- I never applied for an F or K.

R01s seemed like a craps shoot before 2025, but now the possibility of real, sustained funding seems smaller than ever. Yet, I know several colleagues earlier in their careers than I am who just landed R01s on their first or second try.

I’m starting to think I just don’t have what it takes to make it in academia. I’m worried I’ll never land the big grants that launch an independent career, answer the questions I have, and help the people I set out to serve.

So, can you be a successful health sciences academic at an R1 without ever having R01 funding? Should I keep trying? And- what does the future of our federal funding landscape look like now that so much damage has been done?

Edit: thank you all so much for the comments- it’s really helpful to both commiserate and get split feedback on how to work through all of *waves hands wildly* this

i'm in the uk for reference.

i'm a current masters student and i'm set on a phd. ive stayed at the same institution for my undergrad and postgrad and i really like it here and the department is great and i know the city well at this point, plus all my friends are here. but another institution that is more prestigious (not by a lot but it's oxbridge vs a russell group) has an academic who would be very cool to work with. i don't even know what my odds would be there, i got a first class degree at undergrad but i'm not exceptional by any means, although i have a lot of passion for what i do and for learning. plus i know how funding works at my university but not there. i am hoping to go into academia after but i know it is incredibly competitive. would i be shooting myself in the foot if i end up staying at my university?

This is just a rant, I volunteer for this prof who I had a solid project but denied me as their grad student and lab manager. I have plenty of research experience but I am doubting whether volunteering this lab can give me a boost at my CV or not. Any advice when you were in my position?

What is the quickest and safest way to check all my references in my PhD document before submission? I've used endnote but admittedly I haven't been checking every detail of the citation as I have been importing them to my document. I am worried about using AI to check as I know it has a tendency to make things up. Has anyone come across or used a good workflow or tool that has helped them get through this mountain of references efficiently and without going mad?

Hi everyone! I recently started my MSc in a social science field after working professionally in clinical research for the last few years. I'm wondering whether my MSc research project needs to be closely aligned with my PhD projects.

My program is extremely busy with classes, clinical/client work, and research, and our program recommends that secondary data is probably the best route for an easy master's project, given that ethics approval takes about 3-4 months at our school.

My PI has data that I can use for a project, but I was initially interested in federal data that I could analyze, with variables I would like to focus on further. However, I found that I have to jump through multiple hoops to even get access to it. My PI's data isn't super closely linked to what I want to do, but still very interesting.

I was hoping to get some insight/hear about people's experiences with something similar and whether it had any drawbacks, especially when applying for funding. Thank you!

Hi everyone i need advice.

Prefacing with i am a very anxious person..

So i just held makeup exams for a class I TA. A student kept asking me about one question. I, of course, did not tell her the right answer. But she kept explaining the answer was D (i thought it was A) i kept explanation brief, pointing towards A but not saying it was. She then changed her answer to A. I found out later the answer WAS D. I was thinking of it not from perspective of class but as a specified researcher. I feel horrible. Its a 50 question exam. Do I tell the professor? But i am so so so so so anxious i do not want to lose my job or it to seem as academic integrity. All i did was literally think my explanation was concreting her incorrect thinking originally, so had her reconsider then she changed it. She did specifically say so your telling me to change to A and i said No.

What do i do. Sorry i am SO anxious and a grad student first time TAing. They are going over exams Monday and i am scared she will
See that question get upset tell my professor i told her different when i didn’t. My professor is pretty chill but still. Of course will NEVER do this again ever. I learned my lesson but it happened and need advice

I have done so much reading for articles and all this time I feel like I've never really nailed down my reading/annotating/notetaking workflow.

Reading physical books is nice but handwriting in annotations takes forever and then there's the task of taking those annotations and making notes with them. I have obsidian for that but when it's time to actually do that it always feels like a massive pain.

I also use Zotero and I really like the epub/pdf annotation within Zotero, and I can just extract my highlights and make notes within the highlights, but for that I feel like I often lose some amount of comprehension from physical reading. Also the annotations/notes can't be as specific as handwriting them.

idk, just curious if anyone else has a system they really really enjoy.